It can be helpful to view toys along a continuum. At one end are open-ended and less structured toys and play materials like cardboard tubes, play dough, blocks, and Leggos. These help children get into the creative play that best serves their developmental needs.At the other end of the continuum are highly realistic and single purpose toys, like the guns and action figures that perform one specific role. They tell children how to be used and make it difficult to move beyond that specific use. Clearly, single-purpose war toys will keep children focused on violence and aggression. Between these two extremes are toys that convey a specific use but leave room for the child's creativity--water guns, nonspecific action figures, and toy telephones.

Other practices helpful in counteracting the prevailing influences of the media and warlike thinking, insteadencouraging pro-social values and attitudes, include talking with children about the content of television and negotiating limits on the amount and type; limiting exposure to violent images and single-purpose war toys for as long as possible; and taking time to help children understand why you don't want them to play these games (for example explain that you have strong feelings about hurting and killing).

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Nancy Carlsson-Paige & Diane E Levin, Who's Calling the Shots? How to Respond Effectively to Children's Fascination with War Play and War Toys.*

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